In prior practice, automotive storage batteries have been heavy, dirty, and frequently have had acid spills which have made the batteries difficult for a retail customer to handle. Accordingly it has been the practice in retail battery outlets, such as large department and automotive stores to display only sample batteries for the customer to view and to select from; and after the customer made his selection, the sales person or service attendant would bring the desired battery from stock stored in a back room.
More recently, with the addition commercially of handles to the automotive batteries, and improvements in the size, weight and closure of the batteries against acid spills, there has been a movement by retail battery outlets to store and display their stock of storage batteries on the sales floor so that a customer can select his desired battery, and then pick the battery up, usually placing it in his shopping cart, and taking it to the "front" checkout for payment. Commonly such batteries are displayed on counters or shelves in the store. The batteries are quite heavy, and most conveniently the customer picks up the front or closest battery from the counter or shelf. It therefore becomes difficult or awkard for the next succeeding customers to reach deep onto the counter or shelf and pick up a battery.
Moreover, it is desirable for the retail outlet to rotate their inventory. If the front or accessible portion of the counter or shelf is empty, it is customary for the stock personnel to simply place new inventory on the front of the counter or shelf.
Conveyors and tracks are known where heavy articles such as storage batteries will flow by gravity to the front of the track. It is known to provide battery storage or display racks with conveyor or tracks so that the storage battery will always present itself at the front of the rack, and the customer needs only to reach to the front of the rack to select and pick up a battery. Moreover, inventory can conveniently be rotated by the stock person by placing the new stock of batteries onto the rear or back end of the rack and the batteries will flow by gravity to the front for customer selection and pick up.
It is known to provide spaced roller tracks on the rack to support the bottoms of the batteries. However, batteries come in a variety of widths, so that the track spacing must be adjusted for the particular size of battery placed on the rack. Heretofore, adjusting the track spacing and securing the track has been difficult, and has presented problems to the stock persons.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide a new and improved storage or display rack for storage batteries and the like.
It is another object of this invention to provide a storage or display rack for storage batteries and the like wherein the batteries flow by gravity to the front of the rack for customer selection and pick up.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved means of adjusting the spacing between the tracks of a battery storage or display rack to accommodate various widths of batteries.